Pal Teleki

Pal Teleki (1 November 1879-3 April 1941) was Prime Minister of Hungary from 19 July 1920 to 14 April 1921 (succeeding Sandor Simonyi-Semadam and preceding Istvan Bethlen) and from 16 February 1939 to 3 April 1941 (succeeding Bela Imredy and preceding Laszlo Bardossy). He was a member of the Christian National Union Party and the Unity Party of Hungary.

Biography
Pal Teleki was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary in 1879, and he had a distinguished career as a geographer at the university before being elected to the Hungarian parliament in 1909. He attended the Paris Peace Conference and became Prime Minister from 1920 to 1921, passing a series of anti-Semitic laws in response to the previous Bela Kun regime. He returned to academic life, but in February 1939 Miklos Horthy recalled him as Prime Minister. He managed to disband some of the country's more extreme fascist groups, but allowed anti-Semitic laws to stand. He believed that the only way to regain territory lost by Hungary at the Treaty of Trianon was to negotiate through Hitler. In this he was successful via the two Vienna Awards. He tried desperately to keep Hungary out of World War II, but hte attraction of joining forces with the apparently unstoppable Hitler made the pressure to join the war at Germany's side irresistable. Feeling bound to a treaty of friendship with Yugoslavia, he committed suicide rather than give in to the pressure from Horthy, his cabinet, and the army to allow the Germans to attack Yugoslavia through Hungarian territory.